Chapter 116: Night Schemes

Dai Yun typed the last line on the keyboard, checked the document, let out a long breath, and then stretched lazily.

He glanced at the pure blue Rolex Yacht-Master on his wrist — it was already 9 p. m. without him noticing. No wonder his stomach was growling. He stood up, opened the door, looked up at the sky full of stars, and quietly walked toward the mess hall.

As time passed, the Shang Hall, once unbearably crowded, had gradually become more spacious. The majority of the Industrial Party had gone to the Kiln District, where they lived in simple houses built from refrigerated truck panels and color steel panels. Another part of the people had gone across the river to Taijiang and were currently staying temporarily in the school, waiting for Chikan New City to be completed.

The shanty area outside the Shang Hall had finally been demolished and cleaned up, and some of the original structures inside the Shang Hall had undergone simple renovations — for example, the Dutch church had now been partitioned into several rooms, and Dai Yun had been assigned one of them as his office.

With an office location, some departments that had only existed on paper could finally open for business — for instance: the Intelligence Bureau. There was no distinction between internal and external, military or social affairs. Given the current tiny scale of the Transmigrators, they could only scrape together one office and one bare-staffed bureau chief for the Intelligence Department.

Even so, the number of Transmigrators who wanted to be the big spy boss still hit a new high — at least one-fifth of the people left their grand names on the sign-up sheet. But things were different now; it was no longer the time when every issue had to be argued about endlessly before it could be resolved. The Great Office now had greatly increased authority, especially Xia Xianze. For a position like this, where no one had a matching professional background, it was basically Xia who had the final say.

It was under these circumstances that Dai Yun, without fighting or scrambling, sat down in that crude office. The remaining bunch — those who had sold life insurance, repaired cars, or wholesale-distributed MSG — howled about the injustice, but that was useless. At least judging from the little work history everyone had publicly disclosed, Xia Xianze could not see any connection between MSG and intelligence — at least this Dai Yun had worked at a head-hunting company. Secretly contacting head-hunting targets, coaxing them into stealing some company secrets and then jumping ship — wasn't that basically subversion... I handled this impartially, and my reasons are perfectly sound!

The bare-staffed bureau chief Dai Yun walked silently along the Shang Hall buildings for a stretch, then entered the mess hall. The mess hall, with two sun lamps hanging overhead, served meals twenty-four hours a day. After all, there were Transmigrators and Auxiliary Soldiers on duty at the fort, and as the number of departments grew, more and more people like Dai Yun needed to work at night. The mess hall had to provide hot meals at any time.

"What's there to eat?" Dai Yun poked his head in and asked the fat cook.

The fat cook who, spanning across multiple dimensions, was bound to appear in the mess hall, was a refugee from Hangzhou. He had been very thin before: "There's clam and sea cucumber soup. The main dish is bear leg braised with mountain mushrooms."

"Bear leg? Is it fresh?"

"Fresh. Shot this morning. The natives carried it over before noon."

"Mm, no soup. Just some meat, and pack the rice down tight."

Dai Yun soon walked out of the mess hall, chopsticks in his right hand, a blue-and-white porcelain bowl in his left. In the bowl were the bear leg meat and rice packed down very firmly on top. He walked to the entrance of the Great Office, peered inside through the crack in the door a couple of times, and found that his target was not there. So he walked on a bit further and knocked lightly twice on the door of a room.

The one who opened the door was the chubby comrade Wang Liguo. Seeing it was Dai Yun, he turned sideways to let him in, then like a thief, poked his head out to look left and right before gently closing the door. This room, in the current Shang Hall, was the most luxurious type: a suite. Its location was also within the inner circle: right next to the Great Office. So the owner of the room was obvious: CEO Xia.

The moment Dai Yun walked into the bright inner room filled with white sun-lamp light, his eyes lit up. Ignoring General Manager Xia, who was sitting at the table, he lunged forward, first shoveling two large pieces of the Pingyao vacuum-packed beef from the table into his bowl, then grabbed a can of Carlsberg from the table and chugged it fiercely. Only after that did he catch his breath, let out a beer burp, and flash a thumbs-up at Xia Xianze: "Xia, I don't admire anyone else, only you! How did you have that flash of genius back then? Hiding away so much good stuff — that's real strategic vision!"

"There's not much left. Better finish it off early and be done with it, so no one can criticize us." Xia Xianze, sitting on a stool with his back against the edge of the bed, replied while picking his teeth.

... From the intimate gestures and conversation between the two, it was obvious that their relationship was anything but ordinary colleagues. The seemingly fair way Dai Yun had become the spy chief... those life-insurance guys had all been played by Xia this time.

"How did the talks with the two scholars go?" Wang Liguo, who had closed the door and walked in, sat down nearby and asked.

"Same as the assessment. You take the one named Huang tomorrow. Nan Wang stays with me." Dai Yun shoveled rice and beef into his mouth and replied indistinctly.

"Weren't we supposed to let them think it over for a few days? What, did Nan Wang agree on the spot?" Xia Xianze asked with keen interest.

"He didn't agree on the spot, but..." Dai Yun forcefully swallowed the food in his mouth: "Please trust my professional instincts. Whether a person wants to go to a new company and build something, I can tell from his eyes."

Wang Liguo chuckled and nodded: "Then Scholar Huang is mine — useful for bookkeeping. As for Scholar Nan, as long as you're confident, that's fine. He counts as your very first soldier, right?"

Dai Yun nodded with a wry smile: "First soldier, and he's a Ming person. Xia won't even let me use a single Transmigrator. It's really tough for me!"

"Alright, stop the theatrics." Xia Xianze spat out the toothpick in his mouth: "These two have stirred up a huge uproar over your position. So many eyes are watching. Just honestly work on your department design first. Once things cool down after a while, I'll quietly transfer over the people you've got your eye on."

"Also," before Dai Yun could thank him, Xia Xianze added: "Huang Ping cannot stay on Dayuan Island. There are too many people here dealing with foreigners. Arrange for him to go to the Kiln District, or the lumber camp — recording work points or something, anything is fine."

The paths of the two scholars thus diverged. As for whether their life trajectories would ever intersect again in the future, only heaven knew...

After the trivial matters were done, Dai Yun's dinner was also nearly finished. The three of them cleared the table, opened the laptop, and began the serious business of the night: designing the political system.

As the initial chaos ended, the major power blocs among the Transmigrators had gradually stabilized. Not counting politically weak soy-sauce factions like the "Carefree Sect," the ones truly wrestling on the stage now were the left-leaning team of the "Tang Cavalry Society" allied with the "Imperial Han Faction," pitted against the right-leaning team dominated solely by the "Dingge Faction."

The Tang-Han coalition, which had always rallied under the slogan "Internal Equality, Saviors of the Losers," had recently shown clear signs of decline. After all, even losers had logical reasoning — the Tang-Han group had one soft spot they could never sidestep: Cao Chuan, Chairman Cao.